Oct 7, 2014

The Journey of Each Soul

In 1977 Chancellor Gerson D. Cohen
of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America approved a petition by the Rabbinical
Assembly to create a committee to study the role of women as spiritual leaders
in the Conservative Movement. The voices included were varied, some in favor of
the ordination of women as rabbis, some opposed. It is interesting to note that
among the objections, one was rooted in sociology and economics. As Rabbi
Gordon Tucker, then Assistant to the Chancellor, captured it in his 1979 report
on the results of the Chancellor’s taskforce, the commission was concerned that:

“…female Conservative rabbis
might at first face great difficulty in finding congregational positions. ...
[but, after weighing the evidence, it was found that, in truth] the receptivity
to female rabbis in the communities was much higher now than it had been
several years ago. …Apparently, familiarity with ordained women over the last
six years had taken effect.]”

I remembered this concern when I read the letter sent
to the Adas Israel community in Washington, DC by its president Arnie Podgorsky
in support of their Rabbi, Gil Steinlauf, who shared in that same communication
the news that he is gay. Ignoring the letter’s eloquence and the obvious
respect the president and rabbi have for each other and for their community,
the very fact that they wrote the letter together and, most significantly, that
the lay leadership of Adas Israel stands in support of their rabbi explicitly manifests
increasing LGBT inclusion by the Jewish world.

This communal trajectory isn’t limited to the
Conservative Movement’s ethical/halakhic ideology. Rabbi Jason Klein is the
first openly gay president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. This
coming March, Rabbi Denise Eger will become the first openly gay or lesbian
rabbi to serve as President of the Reform Movement’s Central Conference of American
Rabbis. Even Orthodox Judaism has come a long way since Rabbi Steven Greenberg
came out in 1999, as organizations like Keshet and GLYDSA (The Gay and Lesbian
Yeshiva Day School Alumni Association) are being utilized by Orthodox
communities looking to become more welcoming and understanding of Orthodox LGBT Jews. Such national leaders as Rabbi Haskel Lookstein speaking out against excluding
LGBT Jews from educational and communal organizations.

Rabbi Steinlauf’s personal life is not a communal
talking point, but, as he wrote to his community, “it is plain to all of us
that because of my position as Rabbi of Adas Israel, this private matter may
also have a public aspect.” Given this truth, what might the Jewish world learn
from this momentary glimpse into a Jewish spiritual leader’s coming out and
from his Jewish community’s consequent embrace? There are
already those commenting on this moment of personal and communal revelation with
scorn and derision. They have truly missed the redemptive power of this moment,
translating it through their own inflexibility, missing what Rabbi Jonathan
Sacks terms “the dignity of difference,” where every person and group is called
to reframe the way we experience the varieties of human experience.

It would be a wishful mistake to presume that every
community is already as accepting as Adas Israel, and it would be criminal to
ignore the fact that though twenty-nine years have passed since the ordination
of women as rabbis in the Conservative Movement, female colleagues are not treated
as equals in communities (neither in the job search process, nor during negotiations).
But we are an aspirational people who wishes to love and live
with integrity, who knows that the image of God is not an aspect of only some
of us.

It is humbling, as Rabbi Steinlauf’s colleague, to
read the bravery and love he expressed for every person in his life, including
himself. He and his community are true dugma’ot,
examples, to us all as we try, as Rabbi Steinlauf himself put it, “to
continue the delicate task of marking and celebrating our shared human
journeys in joy and in holiness.”

The journey of each soul takes its
own course. Our spiritual task is to embrace and learn and celebrate and weep.
And leave judgment up to the Divine.

Menachem Creditor is rabbi
of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, CA and sits on the Executive
Council of the Rabbinical Assembly. He blogs at menachemcreditor.org